We Americans are keepers of many things — in this particular matter, I can’t bring myself to use the word “own” — toasters that sear the image of Jesus on our bread and ticket stubs from Abba concerts, not to mention kangaroos, lemurs, muntjac deer, potbellied pigs, lions, capuchin monkeys, cobras, pythons, and white tigers. Exotic animals were in the news here in Ventura County last week, the Ventura County Planning Commission denying exotic animal trainer Irena Hauser’s application to house up to five white tigers in Deer Creek Canyon, an unincorporated residential community in the Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu.

As of late Monday afternoon, when I was finishing this column, the most frequently emailed story on The Times’s website for the previous week wasn’t about the polar vortex, Chris Christie or “Downton Abbey.” It was about cats. I suppose that’s no big shock. On blogs, on Facebook and all around the Internet, claws and clicks go hand in hand (or is that paw in paw?). While the meek may be inheriting the earth, the furry have already claimed cyberspace. But what is surprising — and indicative of a new chapter in the interactions of Americans and the animals around us — is the focus of the cat story in question.